Parking tokens in Costa Rica – a scam or April Fool’s joke?

Is this Tiddlywink a Costa Rica scam? It’s a cheap plastic token dispensed by a parking kiosk at a huge local hospital. I looks exactly like a Tiddlywink. It can’t possibly contain any electronic chips, but yet somehow when you give the token to an attendant (or drop it in the payment kiosk) a charge for parking magically appears on the screen.

Impossible, no?

Other parking lots print out a lightweight cardboard with a black stripe on the back imitating a “magnetic” stripe. I can somewhat accept that this is legitimate.

But plastic Tiddlywink? Hardly.

Another Gringo Tax?

Inquiring minds need to know. Weigh in with your thoughts. I’m gonna invest in a bunch of Tiddlywinks and start charging a toll to cruise our road.

Comments

That’s easily large enough to hold an embedded passive RFID. The dispenser could blow the dispensing time into it then read that info when you leave. However, it’s a little sophisticated for CR and the question would be, “Why?” when simple (cheap) systems were working fine.